Gillian and James were married in a Norwegian stave church on the shore of Lake Michigan, which is a strange sentence to write about Door County until you know how it got there.
The Boynton Chapel sits on the grounds of Bjorklunden, a 441-acre estate just south of Baileys Harbor with more than a mile of Lake Michigan shoreline. Donald and Winifred Boynton summered there, and between 1939 and 1947 the two of them built this chapel by hand. Not commissioned it. Built it. Eight years of work, modeled on the Garmo stave church at Maihaugen in Lillehammer, Norway, down to the steep roof and the carved wood. The forty-one frescoes inside were hand-painted, all of them by Winifred, in the flat style of Swedish bonader, the painted peasant wall hangings.
She had no formal training when she started. She was a housewife from Highland Park, Illinois, and she taught herself woodcarving and fresco painting as the building went up, taking instruction at a local school and at the Art Institute of Chicago and from a painter friend, and travelling to Norway to study medieval church art firsthand. She later wrote a book about the whole undertaking, called Faith Builds a Chapel, which tells you a little about what those eight years meant to her.
They left the estate to Lawrence University in 1963, and it’s the university’s northern campus now. The chapel still holds weddings.
Inside it seats around three dozen people in pews, and it is not a large room. That’s the point of it. A wedding in here is a wedding where everyone can see everyone.
Photographs from Gillian and James’s intimate wedding at the Boynton Chapel at Bjorklunden in Baileys Harbor, Wisconsin, and their reception at Whitefish Dunes State Park in Door County.
Gillian and James pulled up together in their Bronco. No getting-ready suite, no first look, nothing to hide from each other. She helped him into his boutonniere. She put on her own floral crown over a lace dress. Then the two of them hung a laurel garland over the chapel door and set out the rest of the decor themselves, and by the time the family arrived the place looked like it had been waiting for them.
Twenty-eight people came, all family. They told us beforehand exactly what they wanted, which helps more than couples realize: simple, ceremony only, candid all the way through, with one posed frame of everybody together. The reference they gave us was Pippa Middleton’s wedding, but more casual. Cotton and linen.
The kids stole a good part of it. Star-print dresses, flower-shaped sunglasses, and two of the youngest were twins who never stopped moving. Their nephew was handed a pair of sunglasses and a job as security for the rings, and he took it as seriously as anyone his age has ever taken anything. Somewhere in the middle of the processional one of the girls stopped in the aisle, looked straight down the lens, threw a peace sign and popped a foot out to the side, still holding her little cousin’s hand. That’s one of our favorite frames of the whole day.
Afterward everyone gathered outside the chapel door and threw lavender buds.
One of those frescoes is a unicorn, and it sent us down a long detour afterward.
Unicorns turn up about nine times in the King James Bible, and they’re there because of a translation decision. The Hebrew word is re’em, most likely a wild ox. Greek translators in Alexandria rendered it monokeros, meaning one-horned. The Latin Vulgate made that unicornis. The King James inherited it, and so English readers got a unicorn where the original had an ox.
Then the medieval church built something enormous on top of that error. The Physiologus, an anonymous Alexandrian text from the second or third century and one of the most widely read books of the Middle Ages, described a creature no hunter could take by force, but which would lay its head in the lap of a virgin and fall asleep. Christian readers took the unicorn for Christ, the virgin for Mary, and the capture for the Incarnation. The single horn stood for the unity of Father and Son. Tertullian, writing around 190, read the horn as the cross.
So the unicorn on that wall isn’t a whimsy, and Winifred Boynton didn’t put it there because it was pretty. It’s medieval Christian iconography, and she went to Norway to learn how to paint it.
From the chapel we drove to Cave Point County Park, which is one of our favorite places in the state and not a close call. Limestone cliffs and sea caves right on Lake Michigan, with the rock shelving out over the water in a way that reminds us of Acadia. We got low sun and crashing waves at the same time, which is not something anyone gets to schedule.
Then next door to Whitefish Dunes State Park for dinner in the Shelter, which is what the DNR calls it. From outside it’s an unassuming building and easy to walk past. Inside there are arches, and a fieldstone fireplace that Gillian’s brother had going before anyone arrived, so the room was already warm when the family came through the door. On an October evening in Door County that does more for a room than any amount of decorating.
Gillian and James had filled the rest of it with a camp-style setup that had no business looking as good as it did. Bamboo plates, menu cards they had designed themselves, the whole thing pitched exactly between elegant and outdoorsy. It fit them, the same way everything else that day fit them.
Partway through the evening we walked out to the rocks at the edge of Lake Michigan, about a hundred feet from the Shelter door, and made the last portraits of the night in the low gold light while the kids pulled their shoes off and waded in.
We both worked this one, which doesn’t happen at every wedding this size. Door County is close to Kelly’s family in Green Bay, so it was an easy yes.
Congratulations, Gillian and James.
Questions we get about the Boynton Chapel
Can you get married at the Boynton Chapel?
Yes. The chapel is on Lawrence University’s Bjorklunden campus in Baileys Harbor and is rented for weddings, along with other facilities on the estate. Bookings go through the Bjorklunden office.
How many people does the chapel hold?
Around thirty-six in the pews, though published figures vary a little. It’s built for a small wedding. If your list runs past forty, the grounds outside are the answer rather than the building.
Is the chapel heated?
No, and this is the detail most couples miss. It’s a seasonal building with no heating system, so the temperature inside matches the temperature outside. In June that’s lovely. In late October it’s a real consideration for your guests and your dress.
Can you light candles in the chapel?
No. Open flame isn’t allowed, and neither are space heaters. Battery-operated candles are fine. Plan around it if candlelight was part of the picture in your head.
Who built it, and when?
Donald and Winifred Boynton, by hand, between 1939 and 1947, on what was then their summer estate. It’s modeled after the Garmo stave church at Maihaugen in Lillehammer, Norway, and contains forty-one hand-painted frescoes. They gave the estate to Lawrence University in 1963.
Why is there a unicorn painted in the chapel?
Because the unicorn is a medieval symbol for Christ. The word entered the King James Bible through a chain of translations of the Hebrew re’em, probably a wild ox, and the Physiologus gave the legend of a creature only a virgin could tame, which Christian readers took as an allegory for the Incarnation. Winifred Boynton painted it deliberately, as part of a program of frescoes that also includes Faith and Charity and the Peaceable Kingdom.
What does the chapel cost, and what’s included?
Lawrence University lists the chapel fee at $600. Read the second half of that sentence carefully, because it covers the chapel only. There are no dressing rooms, no public restrooms, and no indoor space to put your guests if it rains. There’s also a two-hour limit that’s enforced, since they often run more than one service in a day. Confirm current terms when you book.
Can we see it before booking?
The chapel opens for public tours a couple of afternoons a week from mid-June through late August, for a small suggested fee. Outside that window, contact the Bjorklunden office to arrange a visit.
Where is it?
7590 Boynton Lane, Baileys Harbor, in Door County, on the Lake Michigan side of the peninsula.
Can you hold the reception there too?
Bjorklunden has other facilities on the estate, including a two-story lodge, and rents them to private groups year-round. Gillian and James went elsewhere, to a shelter at Whitefish Dunes State Park a short drive south. Ask the Bjorklunden office what’s available for your date, since the chapel and the lodge are booked separately.
If you’re planning something small in Door County, send us a note.
